“This vaccine is almost 100% safe from preventing you or your loved one from getting serious illnesses,” Adams said. “It’s the way we end this pandemic.”
Officials have begun distributing vaccines to health workers and long-term care residents. But most Americans will probably not be immunized until 2021, when more doses can be produced and distributed. The United States is on track to have 20 million vaccine doses by the end of December, 50 million by the end of January and 100 million by the end of February, Adams said.
While the process of getting the two doses needed by Americans is a daunting task, Adams said he is more concerned with confidence in the vaccine than the supply of vaccines.
“It’s okay to have questions. It’s okay to ask questions,” he said. “What’s wrong is letting misinformation or mistrust make you make a decision that will hurt your health, that of your family, or that of your community.”
5 Alaska health workers experience adverse reactions
As vaccines are targeted to the public, some have reported adverse reactions.
Two more Providence Health Alaska health workers suffered adverse reactions to the coronavirus vaccine, a spokesman for CNN said Saturday. In all, five have had adverse reactions across the state.
His reactions were mild and non-threatening, Mikal Canfield said.
The healthcare company noted that these four workers accounted for “less than 0.15% of the approximately 3,000 who have so far received vaccines against Advocate Aurora Health” and that the break allowed “time to better understand” the cause of the reactions. However, vaccination continued in eight other Illinois and Wisconsin locations.
The health system said the program will resume on Sunday with a 30-minute increase until the post-vaccine evaluation period, with great caution.
Adams said allergic reactions to coronavirus vaccines “are not abnormal or unexpected.”
“The system works,” Adams said during a press conference hosted by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. “We are recognizing and capturing these very, very rare side effects.”
‘We need LA to become a ghost town again’
With unparalleled spread rates, California has reinstated restrictions to mitigate coronavirus spread.
The current peak of Covid-19 in California “is by far the worst that has happened in the last 9 months,” said Dr. Thomas Yadegar, ICU director at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center in Los Angeles. during an interview with “CNN Newsroom.”
The state has continuously set maximum daily records in hospitalizations and deaths and ICU bed capacity has been reduced to almost zero in many parts of the state.
“Right now, we need LA to become a ghost town again. That’s what we need. To be able to try to save so many people and heal so many souls,” Yadegar said.
“As much as we try to improve patients, stabilize them, and hope we have patients at home, it looks like there are four other patients who are sicker waiting for the same bed,” Yadegar told CNN’s Paul Vercammen.
Yadegar added that patients arrive at his hospital “much sicker than the last four months.”
He thinks a lot of people wait too long to get into already overflowing hospitals, he said.
“Last week I had a patient who waited too long. And I asked them, ‘Why don’t you come earlier?’ “And it broke my heart, but what he said was …” I didn’t want to take someone else’s bed. I didn’t want to take someone else’s bed. I thought someone would be sicker and need more, “” Yadegar said
CNN’s Lauren Mascarenhas, Hollie Silverman, Gisela Crespo and Paul Vercammen contributed to this report.